BATON ROUGE — Does your thumb hurt when you're scrolling on your phone? Is it made worse when gripping objects?

You could be suffering from basilar thumb joint arthritis.

"And patients will typically complain, for example, in opening a jar, turning a key, opening a doorknob will cause pain," Sanj Kakar, an orthopedic surgeon, said.

In a normal thumb joint, bones are covered in cartilage, but with arthritis, the cartilage wears away, causing joint damage and pain.

"Which is basically pain as the thumb bone is grinding down every time you pinch a pound of pressure between the thumb and the index finger, it's magnified twelvefold," Kakar said.

Several treatment options are available to relieve aching joints, including medication, splints, and in some cases, surgery.

"We can do minimally invasive surgeries, for example, putting a camera in and cleaning it out. Or some of these nerves that give nerve endings to the bone, we actually get rid of those nerve endings to decrease the pain," Kakar said.

In more advanced arthritis, surgeons either remove the arthritic bone or perform a joint replacement. If symptoms persist, see a certified hand therapist.